As the Maple Leafs lurched through their longest slump of the lockout-shortened campaign this week, season ticket holders received a letter.

“Under the direction of our new General Manager & Senior Vice-President of Hockey Operations, Dave Nonis, and in the first full year of Coach Randy Carlyle’s system, your Toronto Maple Leafs are positioned to return to the NHL playoffs . . . ”

Um, hold that triumphant thought. About 15 minutes into the second period of Saturday night’s home game against the Jets, it looked as though your Maple Leafs were positioned to never again return to the Winnipeg zone. Forget pondering Toronto’s first trip to the post-season since 2004. The fans at the Air Canada Centre would have been happy seeing the puck briefly removed from tap-in distance of the Toronto net.

At that point, Toronto had surrendered four unanswered goals in a gruesome stretch of slothfulness that saw them outworked and outsmarted and outshot.

“Bombarded,” is how Ben Scrivens said he felt during that tilted-ice deluge.